Category Archives: Life

Splurging a bit on Valentine’s food

Valentine’s Day means something different for every person. For a long time, I really disliked Valentine’s Day; however, as time has gone on, it’s started to grow on me. I think because life gets so crazy and busy, it’s nice to have a holiday where you can set some time aside and spend a romantic evening together. Last year Andrew and I decided to not share gifts, but instead to just spend the evening together and that would be our “gift” to each other. I already know that he loves me, so it’s not necessary to spend money on gifts to prove it.

That being said, I did cave a bit this year. I have no self control, I swear. We are on a pretty strict budget (because school and loans and saving for the future) so we don’t set aside very much money each month for going out to eat or just for splurges. I think because of that, I wanted to surprise him. Andrew loves Krispy Kreme doughnuts, so I drove out to the nearest one and picked up an assorted dozen. They had some really cute Valentine ones that I couldn’t pass up. I picked out a couple “love bug” doughnuts for him. They also had some “bee mine” doughnuts, but they had chocolate filling and neither of us are fans of those.

Love Bug doughnut. So cute!
Love Bug doughnut. So cute!

I also bought him a bunch of candies, which also wasn’t planned. But when I went in the store to just get something quick, I kept seeing things he liked and just couldn’t resist! It was fun to surprise him in the morning before he left for work. The quickest way to both of our hearts is obviously the stomach. :D

Almost two years ago, Andrew took me to the Melting Pot and proposed to me. Before I even knew what he was about to ask me, it was the most fun I’ve ever had on a date! So I wanted to try and recreate that at home. We were gifted a fondue set as a wedding present and hadn’t used it yet., so I thought Valentine’s Day would be a perfect opportunity for a fondue night. We started out the evening with our “cheese fondue.” I put that in quotation marks because we just made Rotel dip and ate it with tortilla chips. ;)

The Melting Pot also has these really delicious strawberry daiquiris, so I bought some mix and frozen strawberries to make those as well. I have never made them before, though I’ve had friends who have made them at parties. They weren’t too hard to make – just required ice, mix, rum, and strawberries. We added more strawberries than the directions said so they would have more flavor. They turned out pretty good!

Fondue night

Then we moved on to chocolate fondue – my favorite part of the night! I bought all kinds of treats for dipping: graham crackers, heart shaped marshmallows, pretzels, rice krispy treats, bananas, and strawberries. We didn’t really use the fondue forks because some of the food was hard to dip with them, so we just used our hands.

Dippers
Our assorted dippers, minus the bananas because we already ate them. :P

We watched How to Steal a Million while we ate. It wasn’t on our IMDB 250 list, but it’s a classic we hadn’t seen before and we both really liked it! I lit a couple of candles, which Andrew didn’t even know I had because I never use them! :P

We were stuffed by the end of the night and turned in about 9:00pm. He was tired from work and I seem to always be in a perpetual state of tiredness. We are such old people now. :( Nonetheless, it was a great first Valentine’s day as a married couple, and I always cherish the time that we can put aside to do something special. :heart:

Coffee, Cooking, and Colorado

Just a quick post about what I’ve been up to this past week!

I’ve started drinking coffee
I am not a coffee drinker. I’ve tried but I’ve just never been very fond of the taste, so the only time I would drink it is when I really needed some caffeine – whether for an early morning at work or for my late night classes. However, our friends recently returned from Puerto Rico and gave Andrew and I some Puerto Rican coffee. I wasn’t planning on using it (since I’m not a fan of coffee) but Andrew made some one morning and I took a sip of it and couldn’t believe how good it tasted!

I am trying not to drink too much of it (I like a lot of sugar in mine still :P ) but I always will make myself a cup after work on Mondays and Wednesdays. After working an eight or nine hour day, I then have class until 10:00pm, so I’m always really dragging about halfway through my lectures. The coffee definitely helps. And, we found the coffee online for a reasonable price so we can purchase more in the future when we run out!

Coffee

Also, is this not the cutest teacup? My coworker gifted this to me over Christmas and I’ve been really enjoying using it for my coffee. Makes me feel fancy in the morning! :P

I have been trying lots of new recipes!
I feel Andrew and I have been eating the same foods recently, so I’ve been trying about one new recipe a week for the past couple of weeks! So far everything has been really good! I’ve made Penne with Spicy Vodka Tomato Cream sauce, Black bean and corn quesadillas, Cajun pasta, and my mom’s recipe of homemade pot pie which I’ve never made before! I’ve noticed that I tend to gravitate towards dishes that have a lot of spices and flavor.

Penne Vodka Sauce
Penne with Vodka Tomato Cream Sauce

Trying new recipes has actually been really fun, and I’m learning to cook with new ingredients. I’ve started cooking with real garlic now instead of using powder, and I’ve been using a lot more spices in my cooking! All of these dishes that I’ve made are definitely going to be made again in the future! And, because I’m using more vegetables and fresh ingredients, I feel better about what we’re eating, too. :)

Planning spring break vacation!
Andrew and I are planning a vacation for our spring break at the end of March. We had some airplane vouchers from our honeymoon we were going to use, but then we decided on someplace closer: Colorado. I’ve always thought that Colorado is such a beautiful, beautiful state, but neither of us have visited before. The hope is that it will be very relaxing and relatively inexpensive as we mainly just want to visit state parks.

We planned out all the activities we’d ideally like to do and are spending two days at Rocky Mountain National Park, three days in and around Denver, and then two days in and around Colorado Springs. We will do some sightseeing in downtown Denver, but other than that we just want to see nature and mountains!

Once the weather gets warmer we are going to try and be a bit more active to prepare for all the hiking and walking we will be doing. I’m just hoping it won’t be too cold! ;)